Photo story of the week: Shooting portraits of the Himba people in Namibia

My photography heroes are Steve McCurry, Sebastiao Salgado, Jimmy Nelson and Joey L for his work in Africa, India and Syria. Their work has always inspired me, being at once raw and gritty, and at the same time revealing a bullet-proof dignity in their subjects. I would love to be able to work in this space myself.

I understand that it’s a different era now and that grabbing a job at National Geographic is not a realistic option. I also know that no one is coming to knock on my door to hire me for this sort of work just because I would love to do it. There are no favours in this industry. If I ever manage to make this sort of work my full time job it will be because I have already proved that I could produce quality imagery in this area.

So I recently packed my bags and gear and headed to a country which has always held a special interest for me: Namibia. I went to the tribal homelands of the Himba people and organized through a local guide to head into one of the villages for golden hour, for two evenings in a row, to shoot portraits with them.

On the first evening I went in I found this lovely little girl sitting with her Grandmother. She was shy and watching me as I shot with some of her family, and every time I looked over she hid her face and giggled. After a few minutes though her grandmother called me over and wanted me to take a shot of the two of them together, and after a couple of minutes the little girl opened up and I managed to grab these two shots. For obvious reasons, I try to share them as a pair whenever possible.

I used my trusty Canon 5DmkII and shot with the Sigma 50mm F1.4 lens, which I love for its crisp image. The settings were ISO200 and F2 at 1/100. I was handholding the camera, and the images are both naturally lit with a white reflector to fill.

If you'd like to see a behind the scenes video of this trip check it out here.

Sean Tucker is a professional filmmaker and photographer who is constantly striving to bring his own spark and eye to every project. You can find more of his work by visiting his website, subscribing to his channel on YouTube, or following him on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Comments

Sean's Youtube channel is definitely worth a look, he takes a much more philosophical approach to photography which I find refreshing, its not all gear led, as bourne by the fact he's still using a 5D2.

Fantastic duo of shots. Choosing not to include the full adult face is a must, to enhance the child. And then showing the feet, with the different number of ankle bracelets, hints at how much the little girl needs to grow.

What? A 5d mk 2 , dont say that people here will be trolling. Y the way I love the composition of the kid and the grandma.We dont need to see her, since it is the extension of the family that i feel is the feeling captured here.Colors are just perfect, I should have kept my 5D2, regretsssssNice job sir

A beautiful little girl, and a beautiful portrait of her.However it bothers me like Hell to see the grandmother's face cut in this manner.Unfortunately ruining the grandmother's face, ruins the whole picture, in my view.Cutting people's faces or heads in portraits, especially in portraits, should be avoided.

what an absolutely adorable little child! i rarely see such peace and serenity on the faces of children in NYC and its suburbs. most of the "children" are spoiled screaming brats and that's on a good day. after decades of shooting environmental portraits there i see no point to it anymore. maybe i should get out of manhattan and travel to some of the civilized parts of the world such as namibia.

she's really very nice, but don't let yourself fool by her happiness. not everyone is like that in Namibia..or Syria etc. You can find happy faces in children also in nyc. just go out on an autumn afternoon and look how they play in a park with dogs and other children in all those colored leaves...

This is the sort of thing we want to see more of in dpr, as opposed to the sensationalist "Bill Frakes" type of article. More high quality photographs, more technique articles, more camera and lens reviews.

Thanks for swapping the photographers for this section, couldn't stand the other dude anymore after 5 or more weeks, it seemed like you were actually promoting him. This guy, on the other hand, deserves this space... congratulations!

I thought "the other dude" was a pretty damned good photographer, and an expert at post processing from whom many of us we could learn quite a lot, but I agree absolutely that it's nice to see another photographer featured.

My wife just got back from a three week trip and she LOVED it and the people. We'll be heading back perhaps next year so I can do some shooting, she said it is an amazing place for anyone that enjoys photography.

I think you take a look at Art Wolfe's images from Namibia, Ethiopia and elsewhere. I've generally found Art's work to be inspiring studies of people from other cultures, but more recently his book The Human Canvas applies his vision of body adornment to a modern culture.

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